Striking secondary school teachers picketing outside Selwyn College in Auckland on Wednesday, 29 March. Photo: RNZ / Jonty Dine
A teachers' strike closed secondary and area schools in the lower North Island on Wednesday.
The action, by members of the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) and the Educational Institute, affected schools from Wellington north to Taranaki and Hawke's Bay.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Education made a new offer to secondary teachers following four days of facilitated bargaining.
The PPTA said the offer did not keep up with inflation, and was not good enough for it to call off the regional strikes, which move on to the remainder of the North Island on Thursday.
The offer, made during bargaining facilitated by the Employment Relations Authority, would take the salary for teachers on the top pay rate to $100,000 by the end of 2024 - an 11 percent increase for the estimated two-thirds of secondary teachers on the top rate, the ministry said.
Overall, increases ranged from 11-14 percent.
The offer also included allowances for pastoral care to provide greater support to students, cultural leadership allowances and a Pacific bilingual immersion teaching allowance.
But acting PPTA president Chris Abercrombie said teachers needed a pay increase that matched the cost of living. The offer for staff at the top of the pay scale of an 11 percent increase over three years did not do that, with inflation running at close to 7 percent a year.